Commercial and residential environmental control systems generally involve controlling any one or more environmental characteristics such as temperature, humidity, air filtration, and the like. While a single environmental control system may control an entire residence (or other facility), various portions of the residence may not be environmentally controlled to the liking of occupants of those portions of the residence. For example, some rooms in a home may be a longer distance from a central heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system, and are not cooled and/or heated as well relative to other rooms closer to the HVAC system. As another example, some rooms may be physically located such that heating or cooling those rooms is more difficult. More particularly, a basement room may require less air conditioning during summer months due to it being underground. Similarly, a south-facing room on an above-ground floor may naturally be warmer than other rooms due to direct sunlight. In yet other situations, occupants of some rooms may simply prefer a higher or lower temperature than occupants of other rooms.
In any of these types of situations, environmental control of particular rooms or other areas of a residence may prove to be difficult. For example, temperature differences in various parts of the home may result in repeated thermostat adjustments, damper adjustments, the use of portable heating/cooling devices, etc. In order to address these issues, homes or other facilities may use “zoning” to allow for independent control of each of the various established zones. For example, a home may be divided into two different zones, where each zone is controlled by its own thermostat or a thermostat that is configured to independently control each of the zones.
However, dividing homes or other facilities into zones and providing separate thermostats for each zone requires additional wiring. This may be particularly burdensome in residences where a single-zone system is to be upgraded to a multi-zone system. Invasive wiring of thermostats and zone control systems into existing walls and other structures can be expensive and inconvenient for the homeowner. For example, multiple thermostats may need to be wired to a zone control panel, which in turn is wired to the HVAC or other environmental control system.
Accordingly, there is a need in the environmental control industry for a manner of alleviating the cost and inconvenience of installing and utilizing multi-zone environmental control systems. The present invention fulfills these and other needs, and offers other advantages over prior art approaches.